


hearth and home

by blackkat



Category: Final Fantasy XV, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Nyx Ulric, Bigotry & Prejudice, Friendship, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-21 22:40:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30028923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Nyx wakes up on an alien world, the imprint of the Ring of the Lucii burned into his finger. It's still not the weirdest thing that's happened to him in the last twenty-four hours.
Relationships: CT-7567 | Rex/Nyx Ulric
Comments: 88
Kudos: 594





	1. Chapter 1

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Nyx says, roughly four seconds after he opens his eyes.

The three suns hanging in the sky don’t move, and they don’t seem to have any sympathy for one tired Glaive who had _thought_ that turning into ash might actually give him a chance to sit down and finally catch his breath.

Carefully, gingerly, Nyx gets an elbow beneath himself, groans as it becomes suddenly, sharply obvious that he’s sore all over. He feels a little like a building fell on him, except it was an airship. And two daemons. And maybe that building counts, too.

Drautos _definitely_ counts, Nyx thinks, and presses a hand against his chest, grimacing as he tries to breathe through the ache. He was probably like two small buildings all on his own.

Squinting upwards, Nyx checks the sky again, counts three suns that probably don’t have anything to do with his spinning head, and mutters a curse, scrubbing a hand over his face. The Kings of Lucis said he had until sunrise and then he’d owe them his life, but—

That’s definitely a sunrise, and he’s just as definitely not dead. He wouldn’t hurt so much if he were.

“Not that I'm _surprised_ you’re all liars,” Nyx says, even though the odds of them listening to anyone who isn't a king or _maybe_ Prince Noctis are vanishingly slim. “But I was pretty sure we had the whole _steep bargain_ talk and you were _assholes_ about it.”

“You were given until sunrise on Eos,” a familiar voice says, and Nyx startles, scrambles to his feet, and almost falls over when stiff muscles pull. Then he catches sight of a gold-topped cane, a leg brace, a dark cloak, and lets himself drop anyway, going to one knee.

“Your Majesty,” he says, and it feels like there’s a fist around his lungs. He _saw_ Regis die, stood there while Drautos drove his sword right through Regis's chest and murdered their king. Regis being here, _alive_ , is—

“Nyx Ulric,” Regis says gravely, and there's a creak, a step. A hand, right in front of Nyx's face. Startled, he looks up, and Regis gives him a faint, tired smile, the lines around his eyes even deeper than Nyx remembers.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, “for getting Lunafreya to safety.”

Nyx swallows, but reaches up, and Regis clasps his hand and hauls him to his feet. “I didn’t,” he says roughly. “Libertus—Libertus Ostium, he came back. I sent her with him.”

“You saw her out of Insomnia and guarded the Ring of the Lucii,” Regis says, letting go, though he doesn’t step back. Nyx feels like he should; they're not on the run, not fleeing Niflheim, and Nyx did his job, manhandled Regis and Lunafreya both as much as he needed to in order to get them out of danger, but now in hindsight it feels like overstepping.

Then again, Nyx distinctly remembers yelling at Regis and a whole room full of his ancestors, all kings, and he doesn’t feel bad about _that_.

“I'm a Kingsglaive, Your Majesty,” he says, and it shouldn’t mean anything, not after Drautos, not after all the Glaives who turned against Regis in protest of the treaty. But Nyx has been a Glaive since he was a stupid kid fleeing the only home he’d ever had, and Regis took him in. Him, and Libertus, and Crowe—they were some of the first Glaives, and Drautos being General Glauca doesn’t change what that meant.

Regis smiles, just a little. “Yes,” he agrees. “A guardian of Eos’s future, who served Lucis well.”

Nyx's throat is tight, and he presses his thumb against the spot where the Ring of the Lucii sat, feels the scar there. He didn’t fail. He woke the Old Wall, called back the spirits and the statues, killed the head of Niflheim’s army. But Insomnia is gone, and its people are fleeing, and Regis is dead. That doesn’t feel like serving it well. That feels like losing another home, just the way he lost Galahd. Noctis is the future, and Lunafreya and Regis both seem to have complete faith in that, but—

Nyx can have hope, and still have doubts. One doesn’t cancel out the other.

“What is this place?” he asks, too hoarse, too short. Turns away, even if Regis is the king, even if there's nothing around them but rolling green hills and white rivers. It doesn’t look like anywhere in Lucis that he’s ever been, and he’s seen most of Lucis as battlefields at one point or another.

“A gift,” Regis says quietly. He takes several slow, limping steps forward to stand at Nyx's shoulder, looking out over the landscape with him. “Your life on Eos was surrendered as the price for your use of the Ring. But…you were worthy. If only for a short while. Taking everything from you wouldn’t have been right, after what you did for Lucis.”

“Didn’t exactly have a lot left anyway,” Nyx says quietly. Crowe dead and Libertus gone and Insomnia fallen left him with nothing. Just a duty, and Regis's death rendered that moot. Maybe he could have sought out Prince Noctis, or gone after Lunafreya, but—

Niflheim won. Briefly, maybe, and not completely, but for the moment, they succeeded in conquering Lucis.

Regis's breath is soft. “Not on Eos. But the universe is vast, and the power of the Kings can be of some use. One death on Eos to repay the Ring’s price, but—I would give you a chance at the life you gave for my kingdom.”

“Give it to Crowe,” Nyx says without hesitation, turning halfway to face him, and this at least he doesn’t need to think about. “Or Pelna. Or anyone who died before they should have—”

“It has been given to _you_ ,” Regis says, and there's a weight to his gaze when he meets Nyx's eyes. “The Ring bound you to the power of the Kings, and it has not faded. Nor will it. Not here. Remember your death, Nyx Ulric, but live for a future that you can shape for yourself.”

Nyx doesn’t bristle. _Quite_. “That’s—”

By the time he turns all the way around, though, Regis is gone.

“Bullshit,” Nyx finishes on a groan, and takes two steps back, turning to survey the whole hilltop for any sign of a king with a bum leg. There's no trace of him, though, just three suns in the sky, oddly blue-white, low hills, green grass, and clear rivers. Nyx is entirely alone.

“Great,” Nyx mutters. He was _fine_ with dying. But now he’s not dead, and he’s in the middle of nowhere, and he only has one kukri, and he doesn’t have so much as a cent on him. Regis's words about a vast universe make him resigned to being somewhere _well_ out of his comfort zone, too. Not Eos at all, but—somewhere else.

No daemons, at least, Nyx thinks grimly. That’s one advantage it has over Lucis.

Then again, Lucis at least has _roads_.

Nyx walks out of the wilderness into a small town, and right into the sight of a giant lizard woman with a ponytail kissing an orange man with huge striped horns crowning his head.

It says, Nyx thinks, rather a lot that this isn't the weirdest thing that’s happened to him in the last twenty-four hours.

They're not magitek, at least, and Nyx gives himself about five seconds of trying to figure out if they're in costume or under a spell or _something_ before the lizard lady starts pulling on the striped appendages hanging over the man’s shoulder and he starts moaning, and then it’s clear that Nyx is intruding in a way he’d really rather not be. He slides around them, keeping to the shadows as best he can even if they seem pretty thoroughly occupied, and ducks deeper into the tiny town.

 _Not on Eos. But the universe is vast_ , Regis said. Nyx has heard the theories about life beyond Eos, inhabited planets somewhere in the universe, and—

Well. Looks like he got dumped on one. And they don’t seem to care about the whole cross-species thing.

The town’s small, too. It’s barely bigger than some of the furthest-flung towns in Galahd, on the most inaccessible islands, and Nyx can't hear that many voices, can't see much. He pauses behind a handful of small, rough homes made of wood and stone, weighing his options, and—there aren’t many. He can wait around until nightfall, use the cover of dark to survey things, maybe grab some food and water and keep moving. Or he could just…walk out in the open and see how things go. Regis seemed to think this was repayment for service, so the odds that he left Nyx somewhere he’ll get eaten on sight are probably slimmer than Nyx is currently assuming.

He doesn’t even know if there are humans here, though.

With a muttered curse, Nyx reaches up, grabs his hood and hauls it forward, pulling the metal mask down over his eyes and the veil up to meet it. However Regis got Nyx back into one piece after he turned into ash, he brought Nyx's uniform along with him, which Nyx would be more annoyed about if it weren’t the one set of clothing he’s most used to at this point. His boots are even his own, familiar and well-worn, and the relief of having that much still with him is deeper than Nyx wants to think about.

Odds are walking around with his face covered in metal is probably going to draw some attention, but potentially less than turning up as an unknown species with no idea of the local layout. Nyx grimaces, checks his kukri is still handy in its sheath—

“ _Eyyyy_ , you done skulking around out there?” a voice demands, right above Nyx's head, and he startles, ducks back as he draws his kukri. A window on the second floor of the house he’s using as cover flies open, and an—an _alien_ leans out. Short, squat, with a trunk-like nose and a pair of wings that buzz angrily, like a wasp’s, and it—he?—takes one look at Nyx and scoffs loudly.

“You look like a Separatist infiltrator! Where are the Jedi when we need them?” he spits, and slams the window shut again.

Nyx grimaces, resheathing his blade, but at least that wasn’t an immediate _what are you_ , and he understood it. More than he was honestly expecting.

“I've had cheerier welcomes from the royal guard,” Nyx mutters, but he doesn’t pull his hood back, steps out into the street between the houses and steels himself to walk openly. Not looking shifty is the hardest part, and he keeps his eyes forward as best he can as he emerges on what looks like the main road. It’s narrow and muddy, rough like the buildings around it, but there are more people at least. Aliens. A _lot_ of aliens. Nyx casts a glance around before he firmly turns his eyes ahead of him, and he counts at least six species, more if the two women with pairs of tentacle-like tails held back by headscarves are two different species, and not just one species with wildly different coloring. Mostly human-shaped, at least, and Nyx corrals his wariness, doesn’t let it show as he makes his way down the muddy street.

And then, with a rattling hum, a huge ship drops out of the sky, soaring low over the town with a rumble that vibrates through Nyx's bones. After it come a dozen smaller ships, blocky and dull grey, a hell of a lot quieter than the big one.

Ships, Nyx thinks with something like relief. That means there's some way to travel that isn't on foot. He’d assumed so, with so many weird species all on one planet, but—knowing it and seeing it are two different things. None of them look anything like the airships he’s used to, but they're not so different that it’s unsettling.

Pelna would love this, Nyx thinks, and has to swallow against the lump in his throat. He always got a kick out of the most cutting-edge tech. Was an engineer, too, before the empire took over his home and he had to flee for Insomnia, proved to be good at channeling the king’s magic and got shunted into the Kingsglaive.

Pelna’s not here, though, because he got all but snapped in half by the daemon on the airship, and Nyx is the one who put on the damn ring.

“Kriffing _Grand Army,_ ” a woman says, mocking, and Nyx pauses, glancing over at her where she’s standing at the edge of a small building. She looks startlingly close to human, except her skin is bright orange and her hair is pink, and she’s scowling deeply as she stares up at the ships that are disappearing into the distance. “How many towns you think will get caught in the crossfire this time?”

“Come on, Lux, leave it be. At least the Seps haven’t hit us again,” another woman says, stepping out of the open doorway and catching the other’s arm. She’s _definitely_ not human, Nyx thinks. Closer to a sea monster, maybe, if a sea monster could be pretty, with a tangle of tentacles instead of hair and mottled blue-green skin.

“ _Yet_ ,” the orange-skinned woman says bitterly, and turns on her heel, stalking inside. The other woman sighs a little, then turns her head, meeting Nyx's eyes like she knew he was looking the whole time.

“Long war,” she says, a little rueful. “Looking for the cantina, stranger?”

 _Long war_. That encompasses a hell of a lot of Nyx's feelings right now, too, and he seems to have tripped into another one without wanting to.

“No money, sorry,” he says, and turns—

A blue-green hand catches his shoulder, and the woman pulls him back. “If the GAR’s here, they’re fighting _something_ ,” she says. “Hyena bombers usually start their runs around this time, when the Seps turn our way. Better you're under a roof right now. The shield covers the town, but—sometimes things get through.”

There's an annoyed huff, and Lux leans out of the building. “If you can't stand to sit in a cantina without drinking, you get one on me,” she tells Nyx. “Just get in here so Syllif stops worrying her tentacles into knots.”

“A Nautolan with knotted tentacles? That would be a sight,” Syllif says placidly, following Lux back into the bar. “My mother already thinks I'm a degenerate.”

“You chose to shack up with a Zeltron in the Outer Rim,” Lux shoots back. “Maybe your mother’s right.”

Syllif chuckles, and there's a flicker of glow around the ends of her tentacles as she passes out of the light, pearlescent and bright. Bioluminescent, Nyx thinks, watching her. That’s usually a predator thing. “Maybe,” she allows. “But the Zeltron knows I love her madly and would defy a thousand mothers for her, yes?”

Lux scoffs, but her cheeks are flushing dark umber, and she pointedly looks away. Gets a hand on the bar, sliding under it in a lithe move that isn't entirely human, and kicks out a stool. “Well? You get one drink, what do you want?”

Nyx pauses, then pulls his mask up, his hood back. neither woman even blinks, so he feels a little safer taking the seat. Looks over the bottles on display, then shrugs. “Surprise me?”

“Lux,” Syllif warns, but she’s smiling.

“He _asked_ ,” Lux says waspishly, and gives Nyx a narrow, assessing look. “Baseline Human? Anything else mixed in?”

This place _definitely_ doesn’t care about the cross-species thing, Nyx thinks, amused. “Pretty much baseline, yeah.”

“Boring,” Lux mutters, but she pulls a bottle of something bright blue down and dumps it into a glass.

Syllif chuckles, settling into the seat next to Nyx. There's a rumble from overhead, loud enough to make it feel like the whole cantina is trembling, and she casts a look up, but doesn’t otherwise react. It’s grimly familiar, and Nyx looks from her to Lux, then asks, “How long has this place been occupied?”

“Separatists took the capital six months ago,” Lux says flatly. “Those karking _vaakatos_ in the government went belly-up at the first sign the Trade Federation was willing to fuck them over a pile of gold if they—”

“Lux,” Syllif, says quietly, and Lux closes her mouth, still clearly fuming. Syllif reaches across the bar to take her hand, and Lux grips it in return, knuckles going pale with the force of it. Syllif smiles, just a little, and squeezes gently. To Nyx, she says, “The local resistance cropped up right after Wat Tambor took over the capital. The Seps have been bombing us ever since. The GAR finally managed to get boots on the ground three weeks ago.”

“For all the good it did,” Lux mutters. “We lost two settlements in the last _week_.”

“Fighting’s close,” Syllif says with a shrug, and offers Nyx a crooked smile. “Someone smuggle you in, stranger? That blockade up there seems like it’s been pretty tight.”

Nyx casts around for an explanation that will be more or less believable, thinks about the science fiction thrillers Pelna loved so much, and grabs for one of the more common plot devices. “Escape pod crashed,” he says, and then, “I have no idea where I am.”

“Kal'Shebbol, in the Kathol sector,” Lux says, watching him closely. Whatever she sees makes her raise a brow, and she leans forward, folding her arms on the edge of the bar. “Outer Rim? Used to be part of the Galactic Republic?”

“The three suns are nice,” Nyx says, dry, and Syllif laughs.

“You're from the Unknown Regions,” she says, amused. “Aren’t you? That pod equipped with cryo when they stuffed you in it?”

Nyx doesn’t answer, just picks up the glass Lux poured for him. It looks like one of the fruity cocktails the nobles in Insomnia drank, but it smells a lot more like the rotgut the Glaives were always served, and he takes a sip, thinks of that last night out with Crowe and Libertus and Pelna, Luche hovering at the edges, and breathes out, pressing the cool glass to his temple.

“Makes for a long day,” Lux says after a moment, and pushes up. Her pink hair sways as she puts the bottle away, and she says over her shoulder, “Cantina’s closed with all the bombings, and we live upstairs. Set up in one of the corners, and if I find any bottles missing, I'm going to show you just how Zeltrons can make people cry from twenty paces.”

Nyx blinks, startled, and raises his head. That’s definitely not how immigrants are usually treated in Insomnia, especially newcomers with no money and no apparent goals. “What?” he asks, startled.

“Corner. Sleep. I assume you need it,” Lux says waspishly. “If the bombers are running, we’re going to be stuck inside all day, and you can at least make yourself useful. I’ve got crates that need moving, and the floor needs sweeping. My mouse droid broke, so you're stuck with a broom. Do it well and I might be able to convince Syllif to feed you.”

Nyx swallows. Crown City is gone, he thinks. The _Glaive_ is gone. Nyx is probably lightyears away from Eos, with no idea what he’s going to do next, and—

It makes a drink and the offer of a meal feel like a hell of a lot.

“I know how to use a broom,” he manages after a moment. “I—my best friend and I. We used to own a bar.”

Syllif smiles, pushing to her feet and moving around the bar. Lux still isn't looking around, reordering bottles like they’ve personally offended her, but Syllif doesn’t even hesitate. She hooks an arm around Lux’s waist and pulls her close, kissing her cheek. “I love you,” she says quietly, and her tentacles curl over Lux’s shoulders, around her arms. “So much.” When Lux huffs, Syllif laughs, and tells Nyx, “Come on, I’ll show you to the stockroom. We can play dumb muscle together.”

“Just don’t break anything while you're showing off,” Lux mutters, but she turns her head, presses her face into Syllif’s tentacles for a moment, and then turns away, vaulting over the bar and making tracks for a door set into the wall.

Syllif sighs, that particular besotted sigh Selena always got when she had a new boyfriend or girlfriend she was head over heels for. She’s practically beaming when she turns and tips her head at Nyx, pushing open the door behind the bar. “Over here, stranger,” she says. “I’ll feed you first. Just don’t tell Lux.”

The first bomb falls when they're halfway through the afternoon meal.

The detonation sounds like it’s right outside the door, and the whole building rattles. The lights flicker, and the table sways, and Lux curses as she almost drops her drink, rocking halfway to her feet before Syllif catches her elbow and pulls her back down.

“Karking hell, that was almost on top of us,” she says, sounding furious, and gives the front window a wary look. “The shield’s up, right?”

“They put it up a few hours ago,” Syllif acknowledges, though she looks more tired than anything. “Lux, leave it be. We shouldn’t be near the windows right now.”

“Good sense says we shouldn’t be here at all,” Lux retorts, and slants a glance at Nyx. “Syllif showed you the basement?”

“Yeah.” Nyx glances out the window, at the empty street, and if he leans forward a little he can just make out a shimmering blue shield covering the whole town. There's a flurry of shapes beyond it, dark grey and moving quickly, and three get bigger, drop down. Spaceships, Nyx thinks, still not quite able to believe it, and says, “Incoming.”

Lux grabs the dishes, and Syllif braces the table, and an instant later something detonates against the shield, flames surging. The whole thing shakes, flickers, and the light above them goes out with a crackle.

In the darkness, Syllif’s breath is heavy. “They're probably rerouting all the power to the shield generator,” she says quietly, and rises. “I’ll get the lamp.”

“Karking hyena droids,” Lux mutters, sinking back in her chair and tipping a little more clear liquor into her glass. Her hands shake slightly, but Nyx isn't about to mention it. “Karking _Baktoid_. Like practically destroying Foundry wasn’t enough for them, now they have to work with the— _kriff_!”

Nyx pushes the napkins across the table towards her, and she takes them with a muttered curse, blotting up the spilled liquid. “Foundry?” he asks.

“My home planet,” Lux says bitterly. “In the Colonies. The Techno Union’s been using it to pump out more droids, and I _know_ they haven’t magically started paying attention to all the kriffing people that are dying there because of _them_.”

“The Techno Union is Sep through and through,” Syllif says, and leans over to set a small white lantern in the middle of the table, the light inside glowing steadily. “Wanting their own government where they can do whatever they want, without even the regulations the Republic was making them follow—no wonder they're one of the ones that kickstarted this war.”

Lux scoffs, downing her drink. If it has any effect at all, Nyx can't tell, but—alien. He has no idea how that works. “And the Confederacy is so deep in their pockets they can't even see the boot they're kissing,” she says disgustedly. “And droid armies turn over whole planets before the GAR can ever _get_ here—”

Something in Nyx's chest turns over. “Droid armies?” he asks, and Syllif pauses, like she’s surprised.

Lux doesn’t. Her lip curls disgustedly, and she waits through another rattling tremor as a bomb drops, then takes a shaky breath and says, “Yeah. The Seps use droid armies. Easy to produce, cheap, stupid enough to listen to them. The Republic’s got clones, so they're hardly better—”

“Lux,” Syllif says quietly, and Lux just throws another drink back, lines clear in her face.

“Clones,” Nyx repeats, and—it’s not magitek. This isn't the Empire. But it stinks the same way, even if he has no context to go no but what Lux and Syllif have given him. “Like, of people?” He hadn’t thought that was possible outside of the Empire, but then again, space travel isn't all that possible on Eos, either.

Syllif inclines her head, and in the relative darkness it’s easy to see the bioluminescence is all over her body, like a thin tracery of tattoos. Her huge dark eyes swallow the light from her skin as she watches Nyx, something thoughtful in her face. “Human clones,” she says. “They're the foot soldiers, and the Jedi are the generals. I've never met one, but people say they're practically droids themselves, trained to fight and nothing else. Not as quick to produce as droids, that’s for sure.”

Something uncomfortable turns in Nyx's stomach, and he looks out the window again. Thinks of the magitek soldiers, all the whispers about how they were clones, clones brought up to be turned into daemons, soulless robots perfectly under control, and wants to reach for his kukri.

“Sounds like both sides are assholes,” he manages, and Lux laughs, a crack of sound that almost manages to break the tension.

“Yeah,” she says, and raises her glass to Nyx. “I’d shoot them both if I had the choice, but at least the Republic just doesn’t care about us. The Seps want us as _slaves_.”

Nyx glances out the window again, watching another wing of bombers pass, and under the cover of the table, he curls his fingers around his knife. “They take that shield down at any point?” he asks.

Syllif reaches out, gripping Lux’s hand, and her eyes are on the other woman, not on Nyx. “Probably this evening,” she says. “If the bombing’s stopped by then.”

She said the fighting was close. Nyx wants to find out how close. Not a good idea, probably, but—

Nyx's skin itches, and he thinks of Selena. Selena crying out, and Galahd burning, and the look on Libertus's face in the aftermath, worn and broken and _shattered_. They’d gone to Insomnia, joined the Glaive, fought for _something_ because there was nothing else left, but Nyx doesn’t want the same thing to happen to anyone else. That was his whole reason for fighting Niflheim in the first place.

He’ll just…take a look around. Droids fighting clones sounds Niflheim turned on itself, but Nyx just wants to be sure.

His hand aches, and he rubs the spot where the Ring sat, the imprint burned into his skin. Regis went out of his way to give him a second chance, but if he thought Nyx could stand aside and watch other people suffer without doing _something_ , maybe he’s a little too much like his ancestors after all.

Or maybe he’s not, and he just knew Nyx would find someone to help anyway, so he landed him in a convenient spot for it.


	2. Chapter 2

The night is almost eerily quiet from inside the bar, but outside, tinny with distance, Nyx can hear the sounds of armies colliding.

He pauses on the steps in the darkness, half-turning as the door falls closed to make sure that there's no stirring, but Lux and Syllif are asleep upstairs and that hasn’t changed. Nyx waited until he stopped hearing anything, then gave it another hour just to be safe, and it seems to have been enough. Satisfied, he pulls his hood up again, settling the hood and its metal guard, and starts down the street. There's no one else out, no other lights on; above, the shield shimmers blue-white, thicker and heavier than the magical shields Nyx is used to, but also less impenetrable.

Droids got through earlier. Syllif had dragged him and Lux both into the basement to hunker down while the squad passed, and Nyx only got a brief look at them, but it was enough to see that they're nothing like the Niflheim magitek troopers. Not organic at all, with no resemblance to living soldiers, where the MTs have just enough similarity remaining to make them extra unsettling. The difference is enough to make Nyx breathe a little easier, but—

There are clones out there, and he wants to see what this Grand Army of the Republic is using before he makes any decisions.

At the very edge of the town, the shield is loose, patchy, shimmering hard. Concentrating energy near the top, Nyx thinks, raising his head to check the dome above him, and that part at least still looks solid. Lux and Syllif should be fine until he can make it back; he’s only scouting, and the bombers stopped their runs earlier, likely to focus on the fighting in the distance.

One step outside the shield and Nyx can see the flare of artillery fire, the glow of floodlights, the whirling flames of detonations, and he has to stop. Has to breathe, hand clenching tight around his kukri. Selena’s voice is close, the way it always is, and he grits his teeth, forces himself to keep moving, to pick up a run and head towards the flames.

Selena would want him to see the future, Lunafreya had said. Nyx hadn’t had any plans to, when he put on the ring, but—

Now that he’s been given the chance, he can at least honor that.

The rolling hills get higher, wider, the further Nyx gets away from the town, until he hits the top of one and suddenly everything else falls away, the ground dropping away. Nyx comes to a sharp halt, the toes of his boots inches from the steep drop, and goes to one knee, catching his breath as he looks down the length of a long, narrow valley. There are huge walkers, like ungainly birds, advancing down the valley, and on the other side, among neat ranks of droids, are massive, four-legged droids, moving like spiders. Nyx takes them in, cataloguing the canons on top and bottom, and—

A scream.

It breaks high above the din of battle, the explosions, the bursts of gunfire. Nyx twitches before he can help it, jerking his eyes down, and stops, startled by the sight of ranks of men in mostly-white armor that’s been painted with blue. Not the picture-perfect ranks of the droids advancing like reinforcements, but…men. Humans, whatever that means here.

One of the clones is screaming, and other clones are dragging him back towards a clone with a white pack on his back, already shouting orders at them. Medic, Nyx thinks, familiar with that particular tone from years on the battlefield, and swallows.

The MTs never stop to help the wounded. They don’t even feel pain.

He’s too far away to catch words, to hear any of the orders being given or what the clones are saying. From this height, all Nyx can see are patterns, and they're easy to pick out. Medics with their white packs, all caring for the wounded. Other troopers, hauling each other out of danger, or back to the medics. One trooper at the feet of one of the huge spider droids, yelling, leaping. Behind him, another trooper shouts, and he leans down even as he clings to the droid’s leg. The other trooper leaps, and the first grabs his arm, hauls him up.

Teamwork. Nyx can see it, and something turns in his stomach. They're screaming. They're screaming and _dying_ , a host of humans in armor against _droids_ , droids who don’t need to stop, who don’t feel pain, who are easily replaced.

 _Human clones. I've never met one, but people say they're practically droids themselves, trained to fight and nothing else. Not as quick to produce as droids, that’s for sure_.

Shit. Nyx curls his hands into the soft soil of the hilltop, trying to breathe. Clones have to be _made_ , and someone made all of these men just to be soldiers. They're meant to fight and die. This is a war, and these are the foot soldiers.

It’s not _right_.

Nyx curses quietly, reaching for his kukri. Draws it, hand tight around the hilt, but—what good can he do? Without the king’s magic, without a whole host of other Glaives, there's no way he can make a dent in the numbers down there. The clones at least have armor, and Nyx can't even cast a shield right now.

Not that it’s going to stop him, Nyx thinks ruefully, and tries not to imagine all the names Crowe would have called him for this decision.

And then, loud, _close_ , there's a cry.

“Rex!” a girl’s voice shouts, and guns fire. Something _hums_ , buzzing as it slices through the air, and there’s a grunt.

“Commander—” a man starts, warning, and is cut off with a choking cry, just as there's an echoed sound of pain and fear.

Nyx turns on his heel and throws himself down the far side of the hill where it drops towards a wide river, skidding over loose soil and leaping. He hits the ground in a roll, rises, and gets half a second to register the scene on the riverbank. Takes in stripey horns, orange skin, white armor—another one of the aliens he first saw when he got into the town, but _small_. Young, and on the ground as she reaches for a glowing green blade. There's a trooper a short distance away, held off the ground by the throat, and the same kind of droid that’s got him has a foot planted on the girl’s back. They're bigger, sleeker, faster than the droids on the other side of the hill, made of dark metal and armed with swords, and the one pinning the girl raises its blade.

Nyx's kukri is out of his hand in a fraction of a second, the instinct of ten years having him shoving up, bracing for a warp. Then he remembers that the power is gone, lost with Regis—

A whirl of magic, silver-bright, and the hilt of his kukri hits his hand.

“Oh _fuck_ yeah,” Nyx crows, and hits the droid full-force, slamming it right off the girl’s back and into the ground. He drives it into the wet earth, calls up a handful of lightning that crackles through it as he flips free, and flings his blade. Warps, as easy as breathing, and it’s like fighting Drautos, that immense, breathtaking surge of magic in his veins that’s so perfectly controlled, so much more _his_ than Regis's ever was. He slams shoulder first into the droid holding the trooper, feels it stagger but not go down, and drops. Drives a boot into a knee joint, feels it sway, and grabs for the gap between armor and wiring. Fire surges from his fingertips, and the droid drops the clone, grabs for its sword—

Arm around the guy’s waist, sword in the air, and Nyx warps them right back to the top of the hill and dumps the guy on his ass. Throws, warps, comes out in midair just as the girl lunges for her glowing green sword and comes up with a ferocious cry, slicing right through another of the big droids. She’s not quite fast enough to get the second one, though, and it grabs her by one of her horns, making her cry out in pain as it hauls her back.

With Selena’s scream ringing in his ears, Nyx warps right behind it, driving his kukri right through its chest.

“Let. _Go_ ,” he growls, and the droid jerks, twitches, reaching for the tip of his sword where it protrudes, but Nyx doesn’t give it time. He wrenches his sword free, slams a hand full of lightning into its cracked armor, and leaps, twisting around it and grabbing the girl as she jerks loose. She shouts, loud and offended, but Nyx's sword is already back in the air, and he warps them up to the top of the hill and then lets go, leaping back before that glowing sword can cut him in half, too.

“Commander!” the clone cries, and jerks forward like he’s going to put himself between Nyx and the girl. The _commander_ , apparently, and Nyx eyes her, then takes a deliberate step back.

“Rex, wait!” the girl says, catching his arm before his twin guns can rise all the way. She tugs him back, then demands, “Who are you?”

Nyx opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, there’s a flurry of cries. A spider droid is surging forward, cannons firing, and troopers in the valley are rushing to hold it, but they're one thin line against something the size of a daemon. The clone twitches like he wants to jerk around, and the girl sucks in a sharp breath, and that’s all the invitation Nyx needs. He spins, leaps off the edge of the cliff, and there's a cry behind him, but Nyx doesn’t turn to look. A warp in midair takes him halfway to the ground, and he catches his kukri, flips it up hard, and catches it half a second before it can hit the spider droid, skidding across the thing’s rounded top. The cannon is easy to see, though, and Nyx raises a hand, takes half a second to concentrate, and throws up a shield around it just as it fires.

The shot rebounds, ricochets across the shield, and slams into the cannon in a burst of flames.

Nyx grins. There's another spider droid coming, and he flings a hand out, casts Thunder even as he leaps, and a warp carries him across the gap as the first spider droid detonates like a bomb. He hits the second’s leg, right above the two troopers trying to scale it, and ducks to the side, dodging a blast of blue light from one’s gun.

“Easy!” he warns, raising a hand. “I'm trying to help.”

The two troopers trade glances, and the higher one, with a blue handprint on his white armor, says, “We’re trying to take out the lower cannon.”

With the angle of the legs, there's no direct way to warp to it, but that’s never been something Nyx has worried about. He flings his blade out, catches it in a scattering of magic, and turns even as he falls. Throws again, hits the edge of the cannon turret, and burns a hole right through it with one hard blow. Inside of it, something cracks, and there's an explosion. The whole droid shudders, listing, and Nyx leaps free, catches his kukri in the air right above the two clones, and lands on the leg as it wavers.

“Grab onto me!” he orders, and the clone with the handprint lunges to grab his partner, then grabs for Nyx. Nyx catches his wrist, spots a clear patch of ground, and warps them to it half an instant before the spider droid topples over completely.

“Ugh,” the trooper with the red dot on his helmet groans, and lists over, sitting down hard. “What the hell was _that_? Are you a Jedi?”

Jedi. The generals, Nyx thinks. Syllif mentioned that. “Not in the least,” he says, and through his visor he catches a flicker of movement, spins, and throws up a hand. Red bolts scatter off his shield, and he flicks a glance around the advancing droids, doesn’t see any of the huge dark ones, and snorts. Drops the shield—

Thunder scatters across the battlefield, lighting up ten dozen droids before they can even make it past the downed spider droids, and they drop.

Nyx almost does, too. He staggers, has to catch himself as his head spins, and shakes himself, gritting his teeth. A bigger spell than he’s used to, but—that balanced the odds a little. Without the spider droids, without the overwhelming number of droids, the clones have a better chance. They _have_ a chance.

Nyx breathes out, raises his head. He can't hear Selena screaming his name anymore, and even if it’s just for now, he’ll take it.

“Watch yourselves,” he says over his shoulder, then flings his sword straight up, warps to it at the height of the throw, and lands on the hilltop just in time to see a form falling, green blade in hand.

Nyx jerks, a sound of alarm breaking from his throat before he can stop it, but the girl twists in midair, lands so lightly it’s like gravity doesn’t have a hold on her. Turns—

Her sound of offense when she sees Nyx at the top of the hill is loud enough to carry, and Nyx grins. He touches two fingers to his brow in salute, then spins on his heel and stops dead.

Blasters leveled at his chest, the clone he grabbed from the droid stares at him, perfectly steady.

“Most people introduce themselves,” he says, advancing a step.

Nyx doesn’t move. “Yeah? Not a fan of a sense of mystery, are you?”

“Only in bad holomovies,” the clone says, and steps closer again. “Why’d you help us?”

“Looked like you needed it,” Nyx says, and it’s the truth, but the clone doesn’t seem to believe it. The pistols don’t waver, and Nyx can't make out any hint of a face behind the darkened visor. But—

He’s not a magitek trooper. Not even _close_.

On the clone’s vambrace, a square lights up white. “Captain Rex!” a tinny voice says. “General says they’ve found the aircraft guns—”

Rex half-turns his head, and Nyx doesn’t hesitate. He leaps, lets the kukri disappear over the edge of the hill, and warps just as a shot sounds behind him. It skims him arm, and he curses, twists, warps again, and lands hard, stumbles, and drops to one knee.

There's a deep burn scored across his arm, and the coat is torn. Nyx fingers the hole, then grimaces, pushing to his feet. Right after Regis was nice enough to kick him out of the afterlife with a repaired uniform, too.

Apparently that’s not the only thing he got kicked out of the afterlife with, though.

Nyx tugs off one of his fingerless gloves, pressing his thumb to the imprint of the Ring of the Lucii. He’s not sure if the kings intended this to happen, or if being able to tap into the kings’ magic is a side effect, but either way, he breathes out a prayer of thanks, then drags his glove back on and flips his kukri up, catching it easily.

It’s the one that was forged in Galahd, back before Niflheim invaded. Nyx can't help but smile a little wistfully, touching the claws dangling from the end of the hilt. The trophies were from his first hunt, back when he was still learning, when his mother was teaching him and Selena was pretending she didn’t care to hide how jealous she was that he was older and got to learn first. He’d come back battered and exhausted and triumphant, and given her one of the two claws he’d taken.

She’d been carrying it when she died, and Nyx had taken it back. Taken it back, and added it to the other on his kukri the moment he joined the Kingsglaive, because it just felt like one shouldn’t be without the other.

Closing his hand around them, Nyx straightens, then lets go again. He lost the kukri he had forged in Insomnia, but—with the imprint of the Ring around his finger, it feels less gutting than it otherwise might. When he gets money, or figures out the currency, or finds a smith willing to barter, he’ll have to get himself a new kukri, keep them a pair as well.

Living for the future, he thinks, and breathes out. Regis gave him a gift, and wouldn’t let him give it to anyone else.

He might as well use it.

“Rex!” Ahsoka cries, and in an instant she’s back up, scaling the cliff in a few long bounds and landing hard, lightsaber raised. “Are you okay? Did he—”

“I'm fine,” Rex says, and lowers his blasters. “Missed him, though.”

He hadn’t meant to. Whoever the stranger was, he didn’t move with the same physically impossible speed of a Jedi. At least not when he was moving normally. But—

“Can Jedi _teleport_?” he asks incredulously, turning to look at Ahsoka.

Ahsoka hesitates, which probably says a hell of a lot about Jedi already. “Not like _that_ ,” she finally offers, and when Rex snorts, she huffs and rolls her eyes. “There's only _one_ Master who can teleport, and she’s a spy. That definitely wasn’t her.”

Not a Jedi, then. Probably. Rex grimaces, looking at the spot where the man vanished, and…the fact that he took out two spider droids and a whole squad of assassin droids by himself would be enough to put Rex on edge. Short-circuiting three quarters of the droids Torrent was facing? That puts Rex well past on edge and right into _alarmed_.

Before he can ask anything else, his comm crackles to life again. “Captain,” Hardcase says urgently. “Word from the general. Are you there?”

Rex holsters a blaster and taps his comm. “I'm here, Hardcase. The commander and I found the assassin droids before they could hit the settlement, and we’re on our way.” When Ahsoka shoots him a sharp look, he grimaces and tips his head. The teleporting stranger isn't something he wants to explain over an unsecured comm.

Thankfully, Ahsoka nods even as she pulls a face, and Rex can't help a crooked smile as he clasps her shoulder lightly.

“General Skywalker wants your location, he said he’ll pick you up,” Hardcase reports. “We’ve got some breathing room here, sir. Want me to bring the squad up?”

If it’s a mission with the general, they're going to want all the backup possible. “Quick as you can, Hardcase. And get Kix—the commander got thumped around a bit.”

“So did you!” Ahsoka protests, but when Rex closes the connection she doesn’t press, just looks away, back out over the battlefield. It looks like it’s in mop-up now, and Rex joins her, shoulder to shoulder as they survey the damage.

He can only see a few troopers who aren’t moving, which is far beyond what he expected when he learned the size of the Separatist force here. Without the stranger’s help, they would have been decimated.

“There are lots of other Force traditions in the galaxy,” Ahsoka says quietly after a moment. “Master Obi-Wan will know if there's one attached to this planet.”

A different kind of Force-user. That could account for it. Rex heaves out a breath, sinking down to sit since they're probably going to be waiting a while, and he pulls his helmet off, looks up at Ahsoka.

“’Least he showed up in time for the assassin droids,” he says, and Ahsoka sighs, folding down to the ground next to him. She’s favoring her right side a little, Rex thinks, watching her closely. From where she got slammed into a rock, probably. The droids were just a little too fast, a little too ruthless, and Rex was expecting a squad of battle droids, not _assassin_ droids.

“I think I'm starting to understand why Master Koth hates them so much,” Ahsoka says, wrinkling her nose. She rubs her shoulder a little, looking back over the hills, and she looks exhausted. They’ve been fighting practically since they landed yesterday morning, and this is the first downtime they’ve managed, so Rex hardly blames her.

“Only time Lock’s ever heard him curse,” Rex says, offering Ahsoka a crooked smile when she looks at him. “On Quarzite, a few months back. They ran into a whole squad of them.”

“With no magic teleporting guy in a metal mask to help, right?” Ahsoka glances back down at the battlefield, and Rex can see the way her eyes go right to the downed droids, lying like toppled toys all across the far end of the valley. Her expression tightens, and she leans forward a little, wrapping her arms loosely around her ribs.

“Master Plo can do that,” she says, and when Rex blinks, she clarifies, “With the lightning. But it takes him a long time, and the conditions have to be right, and even then it’s only enough lightning to take out a few droids. Not most of the battlefield.”

Powerful, even beyond the teleporting. Rex breathes in, holds it, and lets it out on a sigh. At least the man wasn’t a new Separatist general, he tells himself. He helped them, and even if he didn’t stop to introduce himself, he at least saved Echo and Fives, brought down the spider droids, almost wiped out the Separatist forces.

“Moved like someone used to fighting,” Rex says. “Bet if we find him he’ll be some kind of soldier or mercenary. This planet hasn’t had a war going on long enough to have a steady resistance, so he must be from somewhere else. Or have _been_ somewhere else.”

“I didn’t even think of that,” Ahsoka says, frowning. “But if he’s a mercenary, that means he’s working for someone, right?”

Rex shakes his head, not sure of anything more than that. “Could be anything,” he says. “Just trying to stick with the obvious.”

“The most obvious thing is that he helped us,” Ahsoka says, and there's a trace of stubbornness to it that makes Rex smile despite his own tiredness, despite all his aches. “I’ll ask Master Obi-Wan as soon as he lands. He’ll probably know.”

No mention of her own Master knowing, Rex thinks, smothering his amusement. Then again, it’s fairly easy to see that Anakin doesn’t have a lot of patience with things that aren’t fighting or mechanics. Or Senator Amidala, Rex is coming to learn.

“212th should be touching down in a few hours,” he says, checking the time. Cody promised to let him know when they landed, and to send reinforcements ahead if they were needed, but Rex hasn’t heard from him yet. That could be a bad sign; the Separatist blockade of the planet is where General Kenobi’s been focusing his attention, and if they haven’t broken it yet, Rex has a bad feeling about all of their chances.

“Master Obi-Wan and Master Skywalker will know what to do about that guy,” Ahsoka says, with a certainty that Rex doesn’t quite feel. “And Anakin promised that we’d even sleep in the town tomorrow, since they’ve got shielding up.” She sounds a lot more cheerful about that, and Rex can't help but chuckle.

“Just have to take out the cannons and then watch for the bombers all night,” he says, and Ahsoka groans.

“At least it’s better than sleeping in the _mud_ ,” she says. “I just want a _shower_.”

The sonics are not-so-secretly what Rex has been looking forward to about their layover in the town, too. And, sometimes, if the people there are grateful, they’ll share some food, or exchange it for protein rations. It’s happened three times so far in this campaign, and Rex has enjoyed every single chance to try something new.

“Maybe they’ll even be willing to let us sleep in their inn,” Ahsoka says, with a note of hope, and Rex snorts.

“If wishes were kyber crystals—” he starts, because he’s heard Anakin say it enough times to recite it in his _sleep_.

And, on cue, Ahsoka groans loudly, disgustedly, with all the offense of a teenager faced with a hated cliché, and she reaches over to thump him in the arm. “Rex!” she protests, and Rex laughs, relieved, exhausted, but—

They made it through and out the other side, one more time. He’ll take it.


End file.
